A few days ago, three of us walked into the spacious, modern restaurant interior at the main entrance to the Weberstown Mall, and if we had not known better we would have been tempted to order a barbecue chicken pizza with an Italian chopped salad on the side.

In fact, though, it's coming up on four years since California Pizza Kitchen shuttered its Stockton location, and the space next to Barnes & Noble has sat vacant, until now.

Noma Sushi & Grill opened its doors nearly two months ago in the long-vacant CPK spot. The décor is not much different from the CPK days, which isn't a bad thing. And if the meal we enjoyed recently was an indication, we will keep our fingers crossed that Noma is able to make a go of it as the latest addition to the roster of Japanese restaurants in the city.

We were greeted promptly upon our arrival, led to a booth and handed menus that could only be described as voluminous.

As if the regular menu wasn't enough, there was a separate discount sushi-roll menu with a dozen choices for less than $7. We tried the Grinch: shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber, snow crab, lemon and cilantro, fresh and ample for $6.45. The Grinch himself might smile if he tried his namesake.

Our main selections also were satisfying: mixed tempura, chicken teriyaki and Noma Chirashi. The first two dishes were accompanied by cold, fresh salads and miso soup.

Four perfectly battered and lightly fried shrimp were the highlight of the tempura plate. Vegetables included zucchini, sweet potato and mushrooms. We'd have wished for a bit more generosity with the vegetables for $12.95. Perhaps we wanted more because the vegetables that did come with our order were so well-prepared.

There was no skimping on the grilled chicken teriyaki, which was accompanied by rice, or on the chirashi - a generous portion of sashimi and fish eggs over sushi rice, beautifully presented and almost too much for one person.

Everything we sampled was comparable in quality and price to what we order at our favorite Japanese restaurants in the area. But it's safe to say that Noma's menu is by far the most extensive.

Beer is available, and so are an array of sake cocktails with names like Sake Rita, Coconut Mai Tai and Strawberry Clouds.

The food menu, meanwhile, is deeper than the roster of the 1927 Yankees, offering 25 appetizers, nine salads, two full pages of sushi and sushi rolls (in addition to the discount rolls), dinner bento boxes, nearly 20 hot entrees (some of them Korean), 10 udon choices, seven ramens, three desserts and a partridge in a pear tree.

About the only thing not on the menu is barbecue chicken pizza. Who knows, though? Maybe Noma will bring the old CPK ovens out of storage one of these days.